The Minister of Finance in Nigeria, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has inaugurated a government spending control team called ‘The Efficiency Unit’ (E-Unit).
Mrs Adeosun on Monday launched the programme to monitor and cut recurrent expenditure across Federal government ministries.
She said the Director at the Debt Management Office, Mrs Patricia Oniha, would be the leader of the unit.
The Efficiency Unit will also assist the government in identifying opportunities to reduce wasteful spending by public office holders, she said.
Best Possible Value For Money
According to the Finance Minister, “there is no amount of fiscal innovation and re-engineering that would deliver the desired results, if the way government funds are spent is left unchecked”.
She also directed the E-Unit team to concentrate on the daily recurrent expenditure of government, which she said had been dubiously inflated over the years.
President Muhammadu Buhari on November 25 approved the establishment of the E-Unit in the Federal Ministry of Finance.
According to the President, the principal objective of the Efficiency Unit is to ensure that all government expenditure are necessary and represent the best possible value for money.
Presently, the oil-rich nation’s recurrent expenditure completely dwarfs capital expenditure by a ratio of 84/16.
This includes non-wage related overhead expenditure such as travel costs, entertainment, events, printing, IT consumables and stationeries among others.
As at September 2015, the entire capital expenditure was just 194 billion Naira while overhead expenditure was 272 billion Naira.
